


Shenanigans, as told by Senju Tsunade ft. Uzumaki Naruto

by Shializaro



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Gen, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-08-10 01:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shializaro/pseuds/Shializaro
Summary: It was never a good time for Tsunade when a client requested a specific ninja for any particular mission.Or, Tsunade knows that Nara brat is up to something. She just can't put her finger on what, exactly. Naruto is just happy to get some mail from home after a long day.





	Shenanigans, as told by Senju Tsunade ft. Uzumaki Naruto

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to runeofluna for betaing! And thanks to wafflelate for organizing the DoS rolling remix.

It was never a good time for Tsunade when a client asked for specific ninja for any particular mission. It was always awkward, perhaps a nobleman with a stupid crush on the kunoichi he met on his last escort mission or a very thinly veiled assassination attempt. Tsunade always had to sit there and listen to some enthusiastic civilian explain why only a specific employee would do for whatever basic task was to be completed. 

Today’s civilian was very enthusiastic and apparently also dangerously reckless. Only a fool or someone who didn’t fear death would actually petition for Team Lucky Seven to do a C-Rank. Really, what were they thinking when part of the reason Uchiha Sasuke’s and Nara Shikako’s rise through the ranks was fast-tracked like that was so that they would never be tempted to accept a C-Rank mission in their lives. Tsunade would have made them work on their Jonin Project for a whole year if she could have, but she really wanted Konoha to remain standing.

And now this fancy-shmancy _ movie director _ was undermining her whole effort, sitting across from her in her office and, with wildly waving arms, explaining why she should have three of her best shinobi attend a film premiere of all things. Unbelievable. Didn’t this man know there was a war going on?

Actually, hadn’t he learnt his lesson about giving those people C-Ranks, too? Hadn’t he been part of their mission to the Land of Snow, where they’d toppled a regime, installed a new, Konoha-friendly leader and accidentally had become movie stars?

On the other hand, they had gotten some good information on the Land of Rain from the man and his crew, and this would be a good way to reimburse them. And maybe a low-stakes vacation mission would be good for Team Seven. And good press was always a boon for the village, having ninja at important civilian functions wouldn’t be the worst thing- 

“Little Shikako gave me the idea, said it was an important shinobi story, she’d be happy it got made, especially in Rain…”

A movie premiere. How bad could this be?

Hell, those kids deserved a vacation anyway after whatever the Police Force Re-establishment had spiraled into. And… if Shikako was involved… It could mean nothing. Maybe she’d just talked about books with him, nothing shady going on. But maybe not. 

This was the girl who had compromised the Kazekage into giving up S-Rank village secrets to her days before his inauguration, after all. 

“Fine.”

Sighing, she ushered the civilian out of her office before going to find Kakashi. She would not be delaying this mission briefing three hours just because of one ninja's idiosyncrasies, if that meant bodily dragging the brat into her office then so be it.

Those brats better damn well appreciate this.

When she arrived at the mission briefing, an unusually uncooperative Kakashi in tow, the brats were already there and looking very skittish - Tsunade mused that that wasn’t really appropriate, she was the one who always had to fill in the paperwork for the shenanigans they got up to, she should be the one shivering in fear - but as much as she enjoyed watching them squirm, she wanted them to at least try to get through this with minimal casualties and, more importantly, she wanted to know more about what happened on that mission in the Land of Snow, that had lead to _ this _. 

“You three… will be going to see a movie.” Tsunade relished in the shocked faces of her subordinates… Well, two of them, anyway, the Hatake brat was still as apathetic and disrespectful as ever. No matter, at least Nara and the Uchiha were still young enough to show some reverence for the hat. Not for long, though, she suspected. Not with the way their teammates carried on, anyway. 

Damn, but she missed the blond brat calling her granny.

Though, team seven would never be ordinary ninja. This mission was just another example: What kind of ninja team was paid to attend a movie premiere as guests?

The Nara picked up the mission scroll she had thrown at them when they had first come in and skimmed it. “A C-Rank,” she said, bemused, and fair enough, Tsunade should have learnt her lesson about assigning these three C-Ranks a long time ago, not to mention that sending three front line jonin on a C-Rank during war times was unusual at best and foolish at worst. 

Then, “Oh, they made it!” 

Really, Tsunade couldn’t wait to hear the story behind that.

* * *

Team Seven came into Tsunade’s office to report a successful mission, relaxed and somewhat happy, and that was all the warning Tsunade needed to be on edge. This was not good.

“We successfully attended the premiere of the movie “Legends of a Gutsy Ninja” by Makino-san. There were no incidents,” Kakashi reported with his usual enthusiasm, meaning almost complete monotone but the crinkles in his one visible eye clued Tsunade in that he was enjoying riling her up, the brat. No incidents her ass.

“Did you brats represent Konohagakure adequately while in the capital? Or do I have to send any nobles apology gift baskets?” Tsunade tried, hoping to drag out the moments before someone would inevitably say something alarming and Tsunade would be forced to throw out her perfectly fine desk again or worse, do extra paperwork.

Kakashi shrugged and turned a page in his book. If she found out that he had read _ that _in front of any of the important people who’d no doubt attended the premiere, she’d dock his mission pay. Brat.

“Oh, definitely,” Shikako sniggered. “Sasuke even got himself a fan club.”

“Oh, shut up,” her second favourite member of team seven (after Naruto, who was too far away to start any trouble at the moment) elbowed his teammate, “you gave all those girls autographs.” 

Kakashi sighed behind his Icha Icha in a way that made her suspect this wasn’t the first time they’d had that particular argument.

The two started bickering like the children they still were - damn prodigy brats, jonin at 14 - and Tsunade let the banter lull her into a pleasant false sense of security for a few seconds. Maybe this would really be a completely average no-aftermath mission. Maybe the curse was broken, and she could stop authorizing grants to the mission desk to hire priests.   
Probably not.

“Anything else,” she asks, sharply, after the brats had gotten it out of their systems. Please say no, please say no. 

“We spotted a background character - extra, really, the actor was hired in Rain and only appeared in one scene, not even a speaking role - who could be of interest.” Damn it. Tsunade felt a headache coming on. 

“Oh, really.”

This was the Nara kid’s serious voice. Shizune had hidden the sake again, and Tsunade couldn’t quite justify interrupting the report to go get it, but it was a near thing. Really, the Nara would flounder and stutter over the most trivial things - like how she’d stood in this office at the start of their mission, tomato-red, frantically reassuring them that _ no, no, the book I recommended to the movie director was nothing like Jiraiya’s later work _. That was seconds before she’d sobered up and explained in clipped tones that she had purposefully manipulated the movie director into filming in the Land of Rain, to gain information on Rain after she’d goaded a missing nin into revealing news of its leadership change to her. 

Tsunade really didn’t know whether she appreciated the Nara’s attempts at spymaster-ing. They already had a spymaster, after all, and Jiraiya was decent at his job. And sure, Nara Shikako did bring her valuable information from time to time, but somehow it was always in a way that skyrocketed her blood pressure. Shikako should be grateful that Tsunade was the world’s greatest medic because driving your Hokage into an early grave via heart attack was certainly treasonous activity.

Her grand debut had been _ Uchiha Itachi _ for god’s sake!

“All of Team Seven is troublesome,” Jiraiya had told her, hours after she had taken the hat and healed the brat, when they’d cracked open a bottle in her office to commemorate that day. “Especially the Nara. You wouldn’t think so, just looking at them, but she’s just... When Itachi and Hoshigaki showed up at that hotel room, apparently she just started talking to him! Cool as a cucumber, like he was her informant or something. I wasn’t there, she was already unconscious when I arrived…” 

Something dark crossed over his face, remembering that. Children in his care had been attacked by S-Rank missing nin while he’d been out, she reflected. They had come so close to losing Naruto to Akatsuki, to getting promising genin - twelve-year-old children, hopelessly outmatched - killed. Thinking about what-ifs and dwelling on your mistakes after barely-successful missions were pointless but that had never stopped a Sannin before. And Naruto was Jiraiya’s godson, the legacy of his treasured student… No wonder Jiraiya had taken it hard.

“Anyway, she woke up and said that Itachi had apparently told her just about everything we had on Akatsuki at the time, which wasn’t much but… She got him to confirm they were after the Biju. What kind of genin does stuff like that, anyway?”

She’d asked Itachi questions, seconds before battle. And he had answered. And then he’d put her in a coma for a month.

This kind of shit was why she had put Shikako in Intel for three months.

One would have assumed Shikako had learnt then about being careful gathering information. Apparently not, though, judging from the Land of Hot Springs. Land of Ashes. “Just checking out a lead from an informant” indeed. 

With that kind of precedent, this could only become a complete dog’s breakfast.

“A man named Uzumaki Nagato.”

Yup, there it was.

Shikako and Sasuke were both looking at her now like they wanted answers about random Uzumaki running around in Rain. The difference between “complete disinterest” and “open curiosity” was, admittedly, a little difficult to tell with the Uchiha brat, but Tsunade had seen him in his office a lot recently, explaining his team’s involvement in (or letting them take credit for) various natural disasters and with the mask obscuring his face, she had learnt to pay close attention to his body language. Even Kakashi shifted a little in what Tsunade assumed was interest.

“The Uzumaki were all but wiped out, but it is not unthinkable that some should have survived.” 

Right. Right? Please let this be something innocuous. Sure, one of Jiraiya’s damn Rain brats had been called Nagato, but it wasn’t that uncommon a name. He'd had red hair. Hadn't his last name been Uzumaki as well? Maybe she just remembered wrong. Maybe his name had been Nagita? Nasumo?

“It’s a little odd that an Uzumaki would compromise his location like that, though, right? Especially since Cloud or Stone would probably still dispatch troops to wipe out surviving Uzumaki… And he looked old, like he was in his thirties at least, I don’t think someone who’s survived so long wouldn’t have learnt to keep his identity secret,” Nara Shikako says, entirely too reasonable for her to dismiss out of hand. Damn it.

Behind her, Kakashi looked at Tsunade over the edge of his book, assessing her. “Don’t dismiss my genin,” that look said. Tsunade almost wanted to, just out of spite. 

“We’ll look into it,” Tsunade sighs. This is going to blow up in all their faces, probably literally. Didn’t all of Jiraiya’s brats die facing Hanzo? 

Nara Shikako was looking straight at her, her hand twitching a little, the closest a trained shinobi would come to fidgeting. She wasn’t trying too hard to hide it.

“Spit it out, Nara,” she says, rolling her eyes for good measure.

“Maybe,” here Nara hesitated, looking just like one of the Nara signature fawns, a little hesitant and completely guileless in a way that Tsunade knew was bullshit, ”Naruto should be told that he has surviving family.”

Damn it. The Nara brat _ knew. _Sure, they had kept mum about Jiraiya settling down in Rain for three years to raise some kids during the war to the point that maybe six people knew in total, including Orochimaru, but somehow, somehow Nara Shikako was completely aware of Jiraiya’s connection to Rain, to those damned orphans. At least now Tsunade knew that she knew. But maybe now she knew that Tsunade knew that she knew... There was that headache flaring up again. 

She wanted Jiraiya to be aware of his kid’s survival, of course. She wasn’t so bitter about him just abandoning their team, abandoning her during a war to settle down for a while, to save some random orphans when more and more Konoha children became orphans every day - right, she wasn’t so petty that she’d keep such good news secret from him. Jiraiya would probably know soon, anyway. As if he’d pass up the chance to see his own book brought to the screen. And Tsunade trusted Jiraiya enough to keep Naruto from single-handedly storming Rain. 

But Shikako wanted Jiraiya to know, too, possibly to get more insight into the Rain situation from Jiraiya, and Tsunade didn’t know what to make of that. Sure, maybe she just wanted Naruto to know he had family, but… Tsunade’s intuition was, despite her lack of gambling talent, superb, and it was screaming at her that the Nara brat was scheming right now.

“Fine, I’ll send him a letter.” Tsunade leaned back, rubbing her temples and indulging in a glare at the kid, who was still looking altogether too innocent for trying to manipulate her hokage so blatantly.

“Nara, report to intel to look over the intelligence we got on Rain from the film crew. _ Don’t _get into trouble. I’m expecting a full report by the end of the week. Same goes for you, Uchiha. Dismissed,” she said, forcefully, shooing them away with a wave of her hand. “Hatake, stay behind.”

The brats looked confused but went along easily enough, piling out. “Don’t be late to dinner, Kakashi-sensei!” Shikako chimed on her way past. Kakashi mussed up her hair.

She waited till they were out of earshot, hearing the Uchiha’s amused “You know he’s gonna be extra late now, ‘Kako” fade into the distance.

Mustering the man in front of her, Tsunade sighed. She wouldn’t get any useful info out of him. Not about his students. But Kakashi was still loyal, trustworthy, and she doubted that Nara Shikako engaged in treason anyway. If that was a concern, she’d know. Right?

She was awfully chummy with that chuunin that Shimura Danzo sometimes suggested for Team Seven missions. It burned that despite moving in such obvious ways, they couldn’t touch Danzo until they’d figured out the scope of his remaining organization. They couldn’t move against Danzo. She couldn’t move against Danzo. She couldn’t...

Tsunade shook herself out of her thoughts. 

No, Kakashi would do fine for the mission she had in mind.

“So, Nara Shikako.”

Kakashi tensed imperceptibly. His one uncovered eye meets hers, and there is a sharpness there that reminds Tsunade that for all his easy-going slouched goofiness, Kakashi had fought in and survived the third shinobi war. It would almost be intimidating if she wasn’t twice his age.

“What about my cute little genin.”

“Jonin,” Tsunade corrects, deadpan.

“They grow up so fast.”

Kakashi closed his book in a clear and telegraphed motion but didn’t put it away.

“Nara Shikako has… a history of efficient information gathering,” Tsunade said, tone carefully light.

Kakashi made a noise somewhere between curiosity and surprise. Tsunade took it as a request to expand on her previous statement. 

“Starting with questioning Uchiha Itachi about Akatsuki before the Tsukuyomi incident, Nara has certainly shown an aptitude for gathering intelligence and then extrapolating from the evidence.”

“Ah. During our first C-Rank, she did infer that Momochi Zabuza was working with the mist rebellion after he failed to kill us during the first confrontation.”

She’d also somehow _ known _ how to treat the cursed seal her teammate had left on the Uchiha during the Chuunin Exams. She’d pointed out that it utilized nature chakra to Jiraiya, the gods damned toad sage. 

Tsunade was intimately familiar with Yamanaka Ino’s report from the mission to rescue Sasuke from the Sound Four, she’d healed the girl after all, and the lines “...Nara Shikako warned me about attempting the Body Possession Technique on the enemy combatant, which I disregarded. The technique was partially successful, but instead of the enemy ninja’s consciousness, my mind was transported into…” were burned into her mind. Shikako knew things she shouldn’t have had any way of knowing. Tsunade just didn’t understand what it _ meant. _ She was missing something, she knew it... 

“... right. She has also been very successful at getting herself informants and allies to aid in her intelligence gathering.”  
  
She’d given Tsunade a file once, nervously smiling, a file that had painted the current Kazekage a traitor to his village. She said she had gotten it as reimbursement. She had smiled the same smile, requesting a particular ninja for her next mission - the chuunin Sai, whose track record was eerily perfect, whose file had no stains or frayed paper edges or yellowed pages, like it had just been- Like it had- Like- 

What had she been thinking about? Ah, right. 

Shikako had smiled like that, requesting a mission to the Land of Hot Springs to follow up on an informant’s lead, hadn’t she? 

She’d smiled that way, telling Tsunade to tell Naruto he had surviving family.

Kakashi smiled, his one visible eye crinkling, but there was an edge to it. “She’s good at making friends. She gets it from Naruto, you know?” 

But she didn’t, not really. Naruto befriended people because that was who he was, always seeing the best in people, always wanting to form new bonds just for the sake of those bonds. Shikako wasn’t an open person like that.

Sure Shikako had friends, had many of them, but where Naruto talked about making friends on his mission, Shikako penciled “possible future contact, amenable to Konoha interests” in her reports. They’d called her kingmaker in one of the bingo books, Tsunade remembered.

And she had friends within the village, like Tsunade’s own apprentice, who had learned the basics of Tsunade’s strength technique because Shikako had given them to her, who basically worshipped the ground the Jonin walked on. Who had assisted the Nara in curing Kakashi of his chronic chakra exhaustion. Friends like any of the people in charge of the educational reform committee that Shikako and Sasuke had put together on a whim to aid their project, something that had resulted in more than three promotions. Or Anko, who’d turned the Kunoichi club into her jonin project but Pinky had told her that it had been Shikako who had initially suggested it… No, Shikako’s friendship wasn’t anything like Naruto’s friendship. Shikako’s friendship got you things, things like techniques or connections or royalties for revolutionary sealwork or positions of authority. 

What if Shikako ever decided to cash in those favors.

Nara Shikako is loyal, Tsunade reminded herself. To her team, certainly, Tsunade hadn’t forgotten her asking for her team seconds after waking from her coma. Possibly to her other friends and certainly to Konoha. One didn’t just become ANBU without wanting to serve your village to the best of your abilities.

And maybe Shikako would just channel all her snooping and investigative talent into being Konoha’s next spymaster, working under Naruto. If only her interest in science didn’t bring to mind her wayward teammate so much. She’d heard of Shikako being charged with human experimentation, giving people untested seals to try out, and sure it had only been a misunderstanding, but her stomach had roiled when she’d first heard the rumors. If only her rapidly consolidated political and social powerbase didn’t remind her so much of- 

“Sure,” she answered Kakashi easily. “And when her ‘friends’ tell her anything, I want to know.”

Kakashi finally pockets the book. He’s fully paying attention now. “Is that a mission, Hokage-sama,” he asks, neutral tone.

Tsunade is reminded once again that he is not ideal for this job. Too disenchanted with Konoha, too loyal to his teammates. But she… she couldn’t trust anyone else. She’d go with her intuition on this, and her intuition said not to let any random ANBU spy on Nara Shikako and her sensitive, potentially very dangerous information.

“Shikako’s investigating has gotten her into trouble before,” she explained, kindly. The Land of Hot Springs hung unspoken between them. “I just want you to keep an eye on her for a while. Make sure she doesn’t bite off more than she can chew, with Rain, and then report back to me.”

Rain didn’t seem like investigating the goings-on there would cause any greater harm, even if Shikako decided to get into the village somehow. There hadn’t been any unrest or noteworthy thing about it in years. There hadn’t been anything special about Hot Springs either.

This time Tsunade wouldn’t take any chances.

* * *

Naruto’s been travelling around with the pervy sage, which is only mostly boring, and between the old man complaining and disappearing into the nearest bars or red light districts they did get to do interesting stuff sometimes. Like today, where they had to run from the angry mob of townspeople they’d freed. 

Now, normally when Naruto frees people, they don’t try and chase him down with pitchforks and hastily made torches. These particular people had been subjugated into a really weird cult, though. And maybe they hadn’t seen it, but that cult leader was a terrible person! Unhinged and ranting about the glory of his weird god, and really mean. 

Naruto didn’t really understand why the town even listened to him, what with the daily human sacrifices (which were horrible) and the telling Naruto that all his precious people would die a painful, fiery death and that somehow that was a good thing (which was worse, because Kurama had been very quiet and there had been a weight in Naruto’s stomach like he couldn’t quite make himself disbelieve the preacher’s raving). 

Sure, Jiraiya had wanted to just let religious freedom prevail, but there had been that really nice family who’d asked them for help getting rid of that cultist and his influence, which had apparently made all those good people into barking mad blood-thirsty fanatics. And Naruto couldn’t just turn his back on that!

So he’d had to sit and listen to this filthy, unwashed guy rant about how his god was all-powerful and would soon rise up and bring about an ‘age of darkness’ and a ‘paradise of agony’ where everyone would suffer forever for some reason, just as soon as the god’s nemesis, the unnamed little god who changed from iteration to iteration (but was always weak because of emotions or attachment or something like that, and definitely only got lucky in landing a blow against the evil god) was defeated. 

Naruto didn’t get why so many people were listening to this guy - hearing him talk about the death of the godless heathens and the glory of pain and suffering with the bloodstains still on his clothes just made Naruto feel kind of shitty, like when he’d been at one of the academy survival drills and seen Mizuki the bastard kill a fox, not to eat it or anything, just because he didn’t like them. Mizuki’d stood there for five minutes, explaining about foxes being pests and omens of evil, and all Naruto had been able to think of was that its fur had looked really, really soft.

It had kinda gotten better when they’d finally been able to fight the guy, and humiliate him in front of the crowd to break the villagers out of their brainwashed devotion, and then Naruto had killed him, which he didn’t like doing but maybe minded a little less than usual. And then the villagers got upset and chased them out, which Naruto understood, lashing out is only natural when your worldview gets upended so violently, but it still sucked. At least he’ll have a story to tell Shikako, he thinks, when he gets back to Konoha. She liked myths and stuff like that.

Naruto wished his team were here. Then they could have made fun of the preacher and his stupid, pointless god together and Naruto wouldn’t have had to listen to him in silence and get that awful sinking feeling in his gut. Maybe it would have been fun. Maybe not, but his team still made everything better, just by being there, and Naruto missed them. 

A toad hops onto the small clearing where they were camping for the night. A big toad. Naruto has watch duty and letting a toad the size of his head get so close said bad things about how tired he was but-

Wait! A Toad! A summons. Careful not to wake Jiraiya, who’d graciously volunteered for second shift today since he’d run late meeting a contact and barely done anything in battling the cultists, useless old man, he winked it over. In the light of the small campfire, he could see its small vest, that made it unmistakably part of the toad summons clan. It had a small red and yellow patch sewn on the side, like a little explosion bubble in a manga.

“Hi, Gamakatsuki!” He grins.

The toad glowered - in as much as toads could glower, which is to say, not very effectively if they weren’t bigger than a house - and croaked a reluctant greeting back.

“C’mon, you gotta have letters from home! Gimme, gimme!”

“I’m on post duty again, of course, what do I look like, an owl summons?” The little toad complains, even as he presses a scroll into Naruto’s expectant hands. Naruto barely listens. Letters! His team has probably written to him! And maybe some other people, like Hinata or Kiba or Iruka-sensei! He changed his mind, today was a great day, villager mob or not.

He’s distracted as he gives Gamakatsuki a treat, and doesn’t listen to the little toad grumble on about the stuck-up slug summons he got the scroll from before he shoos him off. Eagerly he unrolls the scroll and takes care not to let any of the loose papers scatter on the ground. Letters! 

He reads Sasuke’s first; Short and to the point. A quick brag about Sasuke and Kako making jonin (“You better be training hard so you can keep up when you get home.”), some anecdotes about recent missions (A movie premiere, really?), a little doodle of what Naruto thinks is Sasuke in a very old-fashioned formal kimono (very obviously Kakashi’s handiwork, the man insists on defacing his team’s letters instead of just sending his own like a normal person) and Naruto clutched the letter close to his chest for a second before gingerly putting it down and moving on to Shikako’s.

It’s longer. Shikako likes writing. It’s a little rambly (“...and Ino made me go shopping, which is a harrowing experience, but the movie was actually really nice. I think you’d like it. One of the background actresses had bright blue hair, so cool. I’ve never met anyone with naturally blue hair before. I think her name was Konan in the credits? Anyway, I own an evening dress now, and I’m probably never going to wear it again, but you should have seen Sasuke in his formal wear! Kakashi-sensei didn’t dress up at all, the spoilsport…”) which is unusual but maybe Shikako didn’t have the time to plan out a letter? Or maybe she just wanted to tell Naruto all about her last few weeks because she knew he missed them and wanted to know what they were up to! Kako is smart like that, after all. Intuitive.

He flew over the rest of the letters until he reached Tsunade-granny’s, the official-looking scroll all the other letters had been wrapped up in. He starts reading.

* * *

A loud screech woke up several disgruntled birds and one even more disgruntled Sannin. 

“Kid, what is-”

“Pervy Sage, wake _ up_. I have FAMILY! There’s an Uzumaki in Rain!” 


End file.
